FRENCH AND DUTCH VOTERS BLEW IT BADLY
Sunday's French referendum on the European Union constititution was an unmitigated dusaster. France, long a bastion of progress on the Continent, allowed her voters to fall for the lies foisted upon them by forces of reaction. France, a founding member of the «EU», now has the embarassment of defeat of her own idea, by her own voters. This could result in the fall of the Chirac government, and the rise of the right-wing Bush-clone, N. Sarkozy.The appointment of D. deVillepin as Premier, while a promising move, may not be enough to stop Sarkozy. Now, the formerly progressive Netherlands have also resoundingly defeated the European constitution. These two defeats could cause the dissolution of the European Union into its 25 constituent republics, and endanger the concept of «multi-polarity», or more than just one superpower. This unfortunately can only embolden Bush's imperialistic aims.
posted by hooey @ 7:26 PM
Just a thought,
Unity should not be an end or virtue in itself.
What did the 'unity' of the British or Roman Empire (i.e. period of the pax romana) achieve? Infrastructural unity, standardisation, regularity, predictability, are tools via which 'virtues' may be realised. The formation of the EU may go some way in the installation of these tools. However, the purpose of these tools - the faciliation of the interests of a bourgeois elite - is questionable in its virtuosity given particular conceptions of humanity.(i.e. what humanity is...i.e darwinian-spencerian version vs. 13th commandmant (christian) version.)
Perhaps, the best that we can hope for is a dialectical situation emerging, where, on the one hand, we have the material interests of the bourgeois elite being faciliatated without any restrictions that might have been in place within the traditional nation-state. On the other hand, the union of European states may lead to a dilution of local identities which might in turn lead to a forging of unities based on life circumstance. In other words, perhaps, a unity based on class. This might lead to greater collaboration and singularity of purpose amongst the non-bourgeois masses as previous conceptual impediments to the appreciation of an ideological unity is weakened.
The EU, dialectically speaking, may thus enable the conditions that facilitate the smooth exploitative transactions of the bourgeoisie on the one hand whilst laying the cultural foundations, in place of the nation-centred one, that leads to a more effective confrontation with the forces of capitalism.
http://the-heretic.blogspot.com
http://art-directive.blogspot.com
I agree. I also feel it would have been an effective counter balance to America's military juggernaut.
Hello Howie,
Have visited your site, which is as progressive as you've advertised.
Don't forget to listen to the Harleys, Cars, Girls & Guitars them song:
http://shoutingthomas.typepad.com/harleys_cars_girls_guitar/2005/05/harleys_cars_gi.html
Nice song, Shouting Thomas. I freqently light up that «sacred herb».
Thank you, Howie, for your kind words about my blog. Did you read it?
Go back and follow the Crias link. You two have a few things in common (politics, politics, and politics).
Good luck to you and yours
Sarah
Ps--Nirvana is the greatest.
I shall add you to my link list howie.
I like your blog. It is progressive and an interesting read, so now i can keep myself updated on it.
thank you for applauding my blog howie i aprecciate it and i do very much like your blog too.
Thanks for the support guys. I get these right wing trolls who keep trying to hyjack my threads and wreck things.
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DO NOT feed the trolls!!!!!!!
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You lost, deal with it.
Howie, nice blog! I like it. I'll be back from time to time!
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Mack;
Silly boy, I never thought you were gay; if I did, I wouldn't have teased you about it, you'd have had my sympathy for your condition.
I only did it to get a rise out of you, and it worked, obviously.
I can't take anything seriously here, can you honestly say that you do?!
As I told you before, the one post you quote is from a Monty Python bit...from the Holy Grail flick.
The rest is just off-the-cuff, in response to your nonsensical insults.
No flag on my t-shirt, anyway, which you can scarcely see in the picture.
(Look again, why don't you?)
"Keeping the anal in analytical" is my own self-deprecating line on my blog, so I can hardly be insulted with it.
The reason I come here is purely for entertainment value.
As for contributing anything intelligent, it that what you call attempting to wrangle with me?
You really do need to get over yourself.
Next question...
Wrong shirt, wrong pic, Camojack.
One of my best (and gay) friends flew choppers in and out of Saigon to pick up wounded and retreating Americans. He's a contented and balanced bloke who needs neither your sympathy nor mine, mate.
It's you I'm worried about. You're reality-challenged.
I see the Pentagon has released details about a soldier in Guantanamo urinating on the Koran.
"A military inquiry has found that guards or interrogators at the Guantánamo Bay detention center in Cuba kicked, stepped on and splashed urine on the Koran, in some cases intentionally but in others by accident, the Pentagon said on Friday"
And Kerry is about to take some action about that infamous Downing Street memo ... the one you said elsewhere you chose not to believe.
----
Howie,
I suspect the EU will sort out this mess PDQ. The document should never have been called a "constitution" as it just put people off. It was mainly a consolidation of existing treaties + trying up a few loose ends. Much as we need a balance to the super-ego of the world's only super-power (which nevertheless has a budget deficit of $500 billion, and couldn't do anything about Iran or North Korea without introducing the draft) the countries of the EU are far too concerned about their own sovereignty to even consider a constitution along the lines of the US (something Camojack stupidly seems to suggest on his blog).
They will not (in my lifetime anyway) hand over their foreign or defense policy to Brussels.
There are complicated issues of the countries' individual economies, but also: the Netherlands, for example, has no cultural identification with, say, Latvia, or Turkey which is due to join too.
And this is one of the joys of Europe itself. I can get on a plane and in a hour or two be in a country with a completely different language and lifestyle. This fact alone makes Europeans more open to diversity and diverse opinions, on just about everything from drugs to euthanasia to religion.
We disagree on all sorts of issues -- but most are equally appalled at the religious fundamentalism of G W Bush and Co.
Typo: should be a $400 billion deficit (?)
Is this blog a joke or not?
I assure you, this blog is no joke. Read it. You might learn something.
Personally, I think this is endemic with the problems of the people on the continent.
If history has taught us anything, Europeans don't consider themselves Euros to begin with - they are Germans, French, British, Scot, Welsh, etc. first.
I think it is ironic that it was the French (whose idea it was in the first place) defeated this. After smackdowns in WW I and II, they wanted peace in Europe - nothing wrong there.
However, as long as everyone followed French rules it would be okay, right?
IMO, the EU is the latest incarnation in reinventing the Roman Empire (hey, good ideas never go away!).
My question to you, Howie, is this:
Why is multi-polar better, if one of the "poles" had 25 different points?
Thanks for stopping by my blog.
camojack vignetted...
...«The reason I come here is purely for entertainment value».
With the amount of time you spend here, Camoujacques, it's got to be more than entertainment... Perhaps it's education.
Some of the comments here are most interesting, i.e. those items on 'anal action', etc, does much in compromising the 'progressiveness' of this blog, unless 'progressive' means progressing backward down the evolutionary path. 'You might learn something'? Yeah, you might learn how important issues are completely ignored in favour of talking crap. I think that is what the 'powers that be' was trying to say. It seems you completely missed the point Howie. I was pissed at being led to some infantile crap when the 'ad' in the front spoke about the EU. Freedom of expression is great but talking about addressing a question on the EU with a conversation about 'gays', 'anal', etc is like talking about what you watched on tv last night when asked how tall you are. That is not freedom of expression but 'hard of hearing' or 'just plain dumb'.
Howie, get a grip on your site, unless you want to scare away those who are really interested in reading and discussing stuff which your site claims to do.
"I assure you, this blog is no joke. Read it. You might learn something." - howie
if i have to scroll all the way down this comments page before i get to a relevant comment, then it IS bloody joke. agree with what that 'anonymous' guy above said. Wake up Howie or hand this site over to someone who is.
well, hi there mr. progressive howie...
I believe you may have a point on this one, but as far as I can understand the so called [treaty that establishes a] constitution [for europe], it is really really really really bad...
Too bad if that Bush character doesn't have an opposite guy on this side of the Atlantic, but, with this "constitution", I reckon he (and the ones that follow) would just have a very nice little friend to help him (and the corporations that support the whole bull-shit) around.
Although sometimes I understand those who say that it is better than nothing, although I believe Nice to be far worst in some ways, the "constitution" sucks.
hey howie:
a lot of deleted comments...
do you believe in free speech?
dear howud:
the eu is a corrupt tower of babble...only surpassed by the corruption of the UN.
That treaty is a piece of shit---it should be flushed down the toilet at guantanmo
Sounds like janny mae again, picking up on a notion she saw at 'Jacques avec le camouflage'.
(Or maybe it's that genius 'momto10'.)
It would be good if the neocons could post a few intelligent points here that would lead to proper discourse.
"Why is multi-polar better, if one of the "poles" had 25 different points?" - rjames
That's because the realisation that they (25 different points) are faced with an 'other', on the other side of the scale, tends to instigate unity within the previously fragmented points. It is from the explicit presence of a perceived 'other', that a previously fragmented 'self' is individuated. It is from the 'other' being seen as counterpositional to one's own interests that aids in diluting the previous perceived differences between the previously fragmented self.
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IN HONOUR OF HOWIE,
I've started BOTBLOGGING.BLOGSPOT.COM
send in your ideas and experiences on how we can make BLOGWORLD a sincere and meaningful place to interact!
1:31 AM, June 08, 2005
I'd be more impressed "not a bot" if you gave some info in your profile. I don't even believe that you're male.
However, you clearly haven't visited many blogs either. You're talking about the significance of blogs? Have you seen the thousands out there by teenagers who post about how they spent the weekend? And they do it in SMS language, not English. There are also tens of thousands of blogs by college students who do the same thing. Utter unreadable pap, but they get hits from their equally juvenile friends.
Howie has put up a political blog, and is to be commended for it. Highly. And much of what he gets here are snide comments from (much older and should-know-better) neocons who don't deal with the issues, but come here to sneer instead.
I know many people who visit other blogs and leave comments, in order to generate some visitors to their sites -- visitors who they hope will engage in discussion and debate. Unfortunately for Howie, some of his visitors have no interest in debate, but only in scoffing without substance.
And since your blog has no basic substance other than to scoff at others, you should attract many visitors who have nothing better to do, like the ones I already mentioned. Put up a hit counter yourself, why don't you. Or put up your own political blog so we can see what you're made of.
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BOTBLOGGING.BLOGSPOT.COM
FREAKING farce.
Not A Bot = Is A Troll
Anonymous said...
dear howud:
the eu is a corrupt tower of babble...only surpassed by the corruption of the UN.
That treaty is a piece of shit---it should be flushed down the toilet at guantanmo
I SAY : well, it better get in queue behind your comments.
Why shouldn't the EU be doomed to failure..it has placed itself right in the fray of opposition to the united states..instead it could have aligned itself with the military jugernaught as someone stated and all would have prospered together..It's almost too late now for there is inmity amongst the unionist..
Give the EU some time...I hear the French and Dutch voters were just glad to send a "fuck you and your sister" to their governments.
I'm all for a "superpower" to keep America in check, but everything else about the EU is depressing.